Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Lethal Acts of Force in 2014 - 4. What Is a Lethal Act of Force?

I use the term “lethal act of force” in this analysis to
mean any intentional act of force on the part of a law enforcement officer who
is doing his or her duty, with that force resulting in the death of someone
else. It’s slightly different than an act of deadly force, which is generally
only applicable to gunshots which may or may not actually kill the person the
police officer is aiming at.

Specifically, for an incident to be counted in my analysis,
it had to pass a few tests.

1.The incident must be a homicide (or at least
possibly a homicide)

Even if the decedent shot herself in the head simultaneous
to being shot by police, it does not count unless the fatal bullet was fired by
police.

Some deaths by tasers and other deaths after police engaged
in a physical struggle with police were ruled inconclusive by the coroner or
medical examiner, as they happened at the same time as medical problems caused
by drug overdose. These incidents are still included.

2.The homicide could be accidental as long as the
officer meant to discharge the weapon that killed the decedent.

There were eight incidents where the bullet fired struck a bystander.
One was Bryce Dion, audio technician for the show COPS, who was killed by
friendly fire in an Omaha Wendy’s.[1] Another was Rafael Laureano, a body builder
from Brooklyn who was trying to save his girlfriend from being stabbed by her
ex-boyfriend and who wound up being killed by a stray bullet from the New York
Police Department.[2]

There are other incidents where police shot and killed
someone who they thought was someone else.
Frank Mendoza of Pico Rivera was running towards his doorway trying to
get away from an armed felon who had invaded his house when Los Angeles County
sheriff’s deputies mistook Mendoza for the significantly younger felon and shot
him. (They also shot the felon, Cedric Ramirez, but only after backing off and
engaging in an 8-hour standoff).[3] Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies were
also responsible for shooting John Winkler, who was attempting to flee from a
man with a knife when deputies encountered him close on the heels of a third
individual, also fleeing the man with the knife. The deputies thought Winkler
was the stabber, chasing the third individual in order to stab him some more.[4]

All of these incidents count in my analysis. The police officer meant to discharge a
bullet in order to effect an arrest. In the mistaken identity cases, the police
officer even meant to strike the person they were shooting at.

An incident that does not count by this definition: Akai
Gurley in Brooklyn. Officer Peter Liang just happened to have his gun out with
his finger on the trigger for no particular reason while patrolling the
stairwell of the Louis Pink Houses in Brooklyn, and the gun went off because
he’s unsafe and possibly criminally negligent (Liang was indicted by a grand
jury for second-degree manslaughter).[5]
Three other accidental gun discharge
deaths that occurred in 2014 do not count, though Gurley’s death was the only
one that occurred while the officer was on duty.

3.The incident cannot occur in prison

The citizen must be outside the walls of prison. Prison
homicides conducted by officers or guards are every bit as tragic as
arrest-related deaths caused by lethal acts of force. But I feel that prison-related homicides should
be outside the scope of this analysis because I wanted to deal with civilians
and not the already-incarcerated.

This does not preclude the inclusion of those who have
recently escaped from custody, or those who have become unruly in a courtroom
setting or other public place.

4.Car accidents do not count

Even if they are later ruled a homicide, I think that
incidents where a police officer kills a person in an automobile accident
should not be included as a lethal act of force for the same reason that
accidental gun discharges shouldn’t be included.

There were a couple of incidents, Delbert Rodriguez in Miami[6]
and Paul Burkons of Los Angeles[7],
where the police officers were en route to a call about the person they
eventually struck with their police cruiser and killed. I still do not include
these because they are accidental uses of force.

Scott Trimble in Iowa lost his life when the car he was
driving ran over a spike strip and slid into the path of an 18-wheeler.[8]
Timothy Rundquist in Minnesota also hit spike strips, but he died when he
steered his car into a parked police car.[9]
Though the thing that killed Trimble and Rundquist was placed by police, I
still didn’t count these incidents.

5.The incident must be caused by a police officer
acting in an officer-like fashion

Incidents caused by off-duty officers count only if

The officer is acting like a police officer, OR

The officer is acting in self-defense from an
assailant whom the officer doesn’t know

Longstanding rivalries like 86-year old Joe Huff of Chicago
being killed by his neighbor, Officer Courtney Hill[10],
Juan May being killed by an Arlington, Texas, police officer he had just fought
with on a party bus[11],
or the tale of the two Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputies who got into a bar
brawl and one of them, Jeremy Martin, ended up dead[12]
– these should not and do not count.

In other words: The officer should not be committing a crime.

But off-duty officers who didn’t place themselves in
jeopardy, like when an off-duty Cook County Sheriff’s sergeant shot and killed
Deonta Mackey when Mackey and his friends attempted to rob him at a gas station,[13]
or when an off-duty FBI agent shot and killed Jason Moore when Moore crashed
his ex-wife’s high school reunion and shot her and her boyfriend, killing them
both[14]
– these incidents should and do count.

6.The act of force had to happen in 2014

I include Ned Womack of Georgia who died in 2015 because he
was shot by Deputy Ryne Kirkland on Christmas Eve, 2014 and died in the
hospital two weeks later.[15]
There weren’t any examples I found of an officer’s use of force occurring in
2013 with the decedent dying in 2014, but I would not have counted it if one
did happen.

7.The incident had to take place in the fifty
states or the District of Columbia

There were two people in the KBP data for 2014 who were shot
and killed by the Virgin Islands Police Department (O’Benson Antoine and Clyde
Norford). I did not count these as I can’t be sure that any event from any
overseas territory would be captured by killedbypolice.net, and also
demographic comparison for such events would be tricky.

What happens after the police kill someone?

I looked at so many media reports while completing this
analysis that I feel I can outline the typical process by which information is
delivered to the public.

Step 1: The first media report of someone dying at the hands of police is
filed.

A journalist is probably listening in on police radio
communications and hears about “shots fired”. A journalist will be dispatched
to the scene and will encounter a lot of police cars and very little
information. The piece that results from
this information will typically go something like this: “A thing happened. Keep
checking back for updates.”

Step 2: An official statement is made about the incident.

This statement will be made by someone in a police officer’s
uniform, surrounded by reporters with microphones, cameras and lights. This
person will either be a professional spokesman for police, if this is in a big
city, or this person will be a police chief, assistant chief, or the county
sheriff, if this is in a suburb or small town.

This report usually won’t name either the decedent or the
law enforcement officer involved, but it will usually answer broad questions
about the incident, like whether or not the decedent was armed.

The law enforcement agency will put out an official
statement in writing at roughly the same time that the spokesman is speaking,
covering all the same information. For
almost all southern California lethal acts of force, the statement will go
something like “the suspect approached the officer, and then an officer
involved shooting occurred.” No other
locality rigorously adheres to such passive language in their official
statements as do law enforcement agencies in the Los Angeles region.

Step 3: An official follow-up statement that reveals the decedent’s name is
delivered to the media after a day or two.

This report will also include more details about the
incident, and have a narrative that is fuller in context and will provide the
official nexus for why the officer shot in the first place.

Some localities, like Houston and Detroit, rarely get to
this stage.

Step 4: Occasionally another follow-up is released to the media that
reveals the officers’ names.

This happens after the officers give their statements to the
investigators. The officers are often not compelled to give a statement
immediately following the shooting, as they become defendants in criminal
proceedings afforded the same rights as civilians.

Step 5: Around the same time, if they’re doing their job, the local media
will have interviewed all the family members, friends and co-workers that they
can find.

The family will have questions about the incident. They will
say that no one from the police department has talked to them. They will ask
why their family member couldn’t have just been shot in the leg or something.

This report will end with a statement that says the incident
is still under investigation. This piece serves to provide a ray of hope for
those who feel an injustice has just been perpetrated in the community.

Of course, regarding most incidents, there are no further
statements about the incident. Did the investigation conclude? Did the officer
get in trouble? Who knows?

Step 6: Infrequently, after a few months, the district attorney will
announce that the investigation has concluded and that the officers have been
exonerated.

This only happened in 28% of the incidents from 2014 as far
as I could tell. In the majority of
lethal acts of force, there was no Google-able announcement of a district
attorney’s decision, and I suspect that the district attorneys did not make
public announcements of findings in most of the 71% of incidents I couldn’t
find an ultimate disposition on.

In some jurisdictions, the investigation process just takes
an extremely long time, longer than a year.
Chicago is the most notable example of this. The Independent Police
Review Authority is tasked with reviewing all complaints of officer force on the Chicago PD, but
their investigations are notorious for taking a very long time to
conclude. The delays have been called
“puzzling”, “ridiculous”, “maddening”, and “an embarrassment”, and that was
just by attorneys representing the police officers.[16]

But where a final ruling on the investigation is released,
there will be a letter written to the chief of police from the district
attorney that informs him or her that the officer has been cleared of charges.
There will usually be a lengthy narrative of the incident that goes with the
findings. The district attorney will give his or her condolences to the family
of the decedent, as well as to the officer or officers involved who had to go
through this legal process.

Around this same time, the internally conducted
investigation will wrap up, and it too will reveal that the officer committed
no violations of police policy.

Step 7: Shortly after, if there were details anyone had been skeptical of,
dashcam videos or lapel camera videos will be released to the public.

Sometimes the law enforcement agencies give them to the
media upon request, and sometimes they have to be FOIA’ed. The video will show the incident happening at
a very rapid speed, and it will seem jarring.
Judgment calls will come into question. Sure, that guy wasn’t showing
his hands, but what made the officer believe he was reaching for his waistband?
That kind of stuff. The skeptical public will continue to not be consoled.

Step 8: The grieving family of the
deceased will announce that they have filed / are about to file a civil lawsuit
against the police department

The announcement will be conducted by the family’s attorney,
who usually will be John Burris. Okay, I
guess there are a few others. The lawsuit
may drag on for years, and the family of the deceased may or may not win a
settlement with the city.